Today, more wheels (et cetera).
A customer (sort of) brought in a wheel built with an Ursus TS58 carbon rim.
This was something I previously called "a waste of Chris King," but I finally had time to rebuild it.
It's got a Chris King red front hub with turquoise nipples,
and a turquoise rear hub with red nipples.
This is a wheel assembled by a certain shop that deals in high-end parts centered on American premium brands
and provides expensive display bikes for the showroom.
But I've never seen a wheel from this shop that was actually decent.
I don't deny that business model, but I'm not sure they're ready to be building wheels yet.
Beyond the quality of the wheel itself, they're cutting corners in other places.
Now I remember. That Reynolds (→here) was the same way.
In that linked article I said I didn't know who or where they were from,
but I had my suspicions, so I asked the customer when handing over the wheel,
and sure enough, that was the place.
Like that Reynolds from the linked article, this one too is a reverse half-comp.
The freewheel side is CX-RAY, and the non-freewheel side is comp with 4-cross lacing, but
while testing wheels like this is fine,
selling it to customers is questionable.
In fact, once you build it you can see it's worse than a normal wheel.
I'd guess it's obvious when riding it too.
Because this wheel, despite barely being used,
has already changed owners multiple times.
Following the Reynolds incident, they've done it again, so
maybe—just maybe—they're so illiterate they think reverse half-comp is actually half-comp
when building knock-offs of Nomuraboragido wheels.
There was even someone in the past who confused 4-cross with 6-cross lacing.
The non-freewheel side is all wobbly.
And yet the freewheel side is tensioned fairly well, so
Even while correcting this centering offset (requiring tightening on the freewheel side),
even if I tension the freewheel side to the limit,
I can't dramatically increase tension on the non-freewheel side.
So it needed rebuilding.
The current owner has several wheels I've built,
but just holding the spokes of this rear wheel made them request a rebuild.
Freewheel side
Non-freewheel side
After carefully disassembling the wheel, these were the last remaining nipples that had never been touched.
The spoke length is slightly long but within tolerance.
Since nothing was applied to the spoke threads, I could loosen them easily by hand.
I'm exposing the rim weight here.
By doing this, I can prevent the appearance of crab-beam criticism
that exposes inconvenient truths.
Built.
R45 hub, 24H, half-comp 4-cross lacing with crossing at the spoke join,
Using red and turquoise nipples split half-and-half.
Next, the front wheel. The spokes are CX-RAY, so
if I just swap all the turquoise nipples for red and turquoise split half-and-half like the rear,
I could reuse the spokes, but
Didn't get a good shot.
The spoke length is short, so I didn't reuse them.
This shop should have a spoke cutter, but
why are the spoke lengths all different?
I adjust them so they're flush with the nipple end face or close to it, but
if there's a philosophy behind it and it's consistent,
even if they're flush with the slot and nipple, that's fine.
This is shorter than the slot, so it's clearly too short.
If spoke tension were abnormally loose and would reach the slot when tensioned,
reusing would be possible, but
it was tensioned reasonably well, so that didn't work either.
Built.
R45 hub, 20H, CX-RAY non-spoke radial lacing
with red and turquoise nipples.
The current owner acquired this at auction, but
the winning bid was roughly equivalent to
a fair price for "just the hub" of a used Chris King in good condition.
Ursus as a brand prides itself on
manufacturing their own original hubs
(though there's nothing particularly superior about the hub dimensions or lacing approach),
and the rims are just Chinese carbon rebranded, so
if the hubs are Chris King, there's actually zero original Ursus content.
If I went into detail about this,
the thought police would show up, so I can't write about it.
Sorry for the wait!
Please take a look at this image!
I compared the Fast Forward 38mm deep rim alongside the F4R!
The specs are almost identical except for rim depth!
↑Stop it!
A customer (sort of) brought in a wheel built with an Ursus TS58 carbon rim.
This was something I previously called "a waste of Chris King," but I finally had time to rebuild it.
It's got a Chris King red front hub with turquoise nipples,
and a turquoise rear hub with red nipples.
This is a wheel assembled by a certain shop that deals in high-end parts centered on American premium brands
and provides expensive display bikes for the showroom.
But I've never seen a wheel from this shop that was actually decent.
I don't deny that business model, but I'm not sure they're ready to be building wheels yet.
Beyond the quality of the wheel itself, they're cutting corners in other places.
Now I remember. That Reynolds (→here) was the same way.
In that linked article I said I didn't know who or where they were from,
but I had my suspicions, so I asked the customer when handing over the wheel,
and sure enough, that was the place.
Like that Reynolds from the linked article, this one too is a reverse half-comp.
The freewheel side is CX-RAY, and the non-freewheel side is comp with 4-cross lacing, but
while testing wheels like this is fine,
selling it to customers is questionable.
In fact, once you build it you can see it's worse than a normal wheel.
I'd guess it's obvious when riding it too.
Because this wheel, despite barely being used,
has already changed owners multiple times.
Following the Reynolds incident, they've done it again, so
maybe—just maybe—they're so illiterate they think reverse half-comp is actually half-comp
when building knock-offs of Nomuraboragido wheels.
There was even someone in the past who confused 4-cross with 6-cross lacing.
The non-freewheel side is all wobbly.
And yet the freewheel side is tensioned fairly well, so
Even while correcting this centering offset (requiring tightening on the freewheel side),
even if I tension the freewheel side to the limit,
I can't dramatically increase tension on the non-freewheel side.
So it needed rebuilding.
The current owner has several wheels I've built,
but just holding the spokes of this rear wheel made them request a rebuild.
Freewheel side
Non-freewheel side
After carefully disassembling the wheel, these were the last remaining nipples that had never been touched.
The spoke length is slightly long but within tolerance.
Since nothing was applied to the spoke threads, I could loosen them easily by hand.
I'm exposing the rim weight here.
By doing this, I can prevent the appearance of crab-beam criticism
that exposes inconvenient truths.
Built.
R45 hub, 24H, half-comp 4-cross lacing with crossing at the spoke join,
Using red and turquoise nipples split half-and-half.
Next, the front wheel. The spokes are CX-RAY, so
if I just swap all the turquoise nipples for red and turquoise split half-and-half like the rear,
I could reuse the spokes, but
Didn't get a good shot.
The spoke length is short, so I didn't reuse them.
This shop should have a spoke cutter, but
why are the spoke lengths all different?
I adjust them so they're flush with the nipple end face or close to it, but
if there's a philosophy behind it and it's consistent,
even if they're flush with the slot and nipple, that's fine.
This is shorter than the slot, so it's clearly too short.
If spoke tension were abnormally loose and would reach the slot when tensioned,
reusing would be possible, but
it was tensioned reasonably well, so that didn't work either.
Built.
R45 hub, 20H, CX-RAY non-spoke radial lacing
with red and turquoise nipples.
The current owner acquired this at auction, but
the winning bid was roughly equivalent to
a fair price for "just the hub" of a used Chris King in good condition.
Ursus as a brand prides itself on
manufacturing their own original hubs
(though there's nothing particularly superior about the hub dimensions or lacing approach),
and the rims are just Chinese carbon rebranded, so
if the hubs are Chris King, there's actually zero original Ursus content.
If I went into detail about this,
the thought police would show up, so I can't write about it.
Sorry for the wait!
Please take a look at this image!
I compared the Fast Forward 38mm deep rim alongside the F4R!
The specs are almost identical except for rim depth!
↑Stop it!